longing to General Leggett's division at Howell's Ferry to leave there and join their division, and have countermanded the order to Major-General Dodge to send a division to the ferry. This will leave the point without any troops except your cavalry scouts. General Dodge will, however, leave a brigade at the intersection of the Sandtown and Howell's Ferry roads. I am also directed to send you a battery of four 3-inch Rodman guns. Where will you have them report? Please notify General Blair, who is to furnish the guns.

Very truly, yours,

JAS. B. McPHERSON,

Major-General.

IN THE FIELD, GA., July 6, 1864-5 p.m.

Major General GEORGE STONEMAN,

Commanding Cavalry:

Have your scouts and patrols along the river particularly vigilant. The enemy have been for the last two hours moving across the river south, and seem to come from the enemy's right or center, as seen from the hill where we were yesterday. They are too far off for any of our guns to reach them.

Yours, truly,

JAS. B. McPHERSON,

Major-General.

JULY 6, 1864-9.30 p.m.

General McPHERSON:

Your not of this 5 p.m. confirms my impression that there has been for the past forty-eight hours an extensive movement of the enemy down the river. Trains of wagons have been seen during the day and heard during the night-time moving rapidly down the river, and long columns of cavalry have been seen and heard. Every prominent point on the other side has a redoubt and rifle-pits which effectually prevent us from getting near the river. I however got close enough to-day to see it in three places, and found it not so wide as I expected. The bottoms are very narrow and the ground gently sloping down on each side. This side is much more open than the other, the woods approaching the stream only in a very few placed, and we were shelled whenever we came out into the fields in any force, so that we have to stay with the animals a mile or two back from the river in the woods. They have all the scows and canoes on their own side, and well guarded by men behind rifle-pits, armed with guns of much longer range than our carbines. The negroes that came across the river last night say that Wheeler with "his company" passed down the river yesterday and last night, and the heavy smokes back from the river opposite the mouth of Sweet Water indicate no inconsiderable force in that region. The negroes say that the troops were going down to keep us from crossing at Campbellton, or in that vicinity, and that they are throwing up works all along the river. I have myself seen them at work in many places and at all the crossing. I am now covering upward of twelve miles of the river with pickets and scouts. I have not yet heard from the scout the Sweet Water as far up as the crossing on the road from Powder Springs to Campbellton.